Time and Tide
by drufan
Summary: Pre-season 5 spoiler tag. Sometimes the only thing to do is wait.


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A/N: This is a Search and Rescue prescience spoiler tag that I know will be Jossed. I was kind of hesitant to put this up, but darn it, that little ole picture the Mallozzi leaked is just sooo…Well, I'm sure you understand.

Disclaimer: By now, if you don't know that I am not affiliated in anyway with the TPTB associated with the Stargate Universe…then, now you do.

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Time and Tide

Light filtered through the wreckage, while dust danced in each beam. It took Ronon a couple of tries to sit up, to fail, to remember, to not cough at the dust as it danced down his throat.

There had been a joke. He remembered a joke at McKay's expense. Something about hair. He hoped this wasn't the punch line.

He tried to sit up again and didn't.

"Must be missing something from the joke's time to now," he muttered. He laid his head down on cold concrete and rubble and looked up at a window leading to outside. "Okay, I'm inside…inside what…should know…take stock."

"On my back, rubble, and head ringing…" He snickered-- a forlorn sound even in his own ears-- and his eyes studied his surroundings. "Not the first time a building's fallen on me."

Small bits of the building trickled down as he lay still, listening.

"Teyla," he whispered after a while. "We were looking for Teyla." He coughed and dropped his head back onto the floor. "Almost hope we didn't find her."

Once again he let his eyes ask his unanswered questions. I-beams, rebar and huge chunks of concrete covered him. And his first guess of a window was wrong. It was an overlook of some sort with exposed infrastructure. The light was coming in from somewhere above it.

He tried one more time to sit up. Unsurprisingly, he failed one more time. It led him to finally look at his immediate surroundings. A large rusty looking beam lay across him, angled downward. A large piece of ceiling lay across the beam. Together they created a pocket for him as he realized he was not flat on his back but on his back and side against a solid surface.

Ronon slowly pulled his left arm out from underneath him and tried to place it on the floor. He grabbed air. He looked down into a gaping hole where the floor had been. The sight sparked an urgency in his finding out about his situation.

"Not alone…who was I with?" Important question.

"Who?" he asked the dust motes again.

He pulled out his other arm and reached across his body. He found the edge of the floor and noticed he was on a narrow ledge. His next move was to try and slide his legs out from pocket. It hurt and they didn't move.

"Not smart…won't do that again."

One might be broken, but the other was numb. He was truly trapped, which meant he was impotent.

He remembered having to leave. The urgent need to leave. "Sheppard. I was with Sheppard…and a bomb…definitely a bomb."

Twelve days. They had lost him for twelve days, waiting for any word or any sign. "Not again," Ronon argued with the debris. "Walk through a Ring and not walk out the other side. It's not natural. Walk into a building…just no."

He wriggled again to look down into the hole. His legs came alive with pain, alerting his brain that it was still a bad idea to move. "He stepped back into me…bumped me into a wall…floor moved."

He was telling his story to the cracking and creaking room. It was a good listener. So many years of only talking to himself. So alone. He twisted his body a little more to see into the dark hole. "Not alone."

Catastrophe lay below. Jagged peaks of masonry and metal reached up to him, begging him to come take a look. To act.

"Yeah, save the day, Big Man," he told the uneven piles of concrete.

Chastisement was an art form on Sateda. Rodney would have fit in with that quirk of his personality even if not with his physical prowess. Ronon looked back into the hole.

The filtered light highlighted certain pieces of building's debris. In one of the circular rays, Ronon saw his proof of company. "An arm."

He could not see the owner because of an obscuring piece of metal. But the hair covered arm fairly glowed in the light and he could take a guess at the owner because of a tell-tale strip of black fabric.

"Sheppard," he croaked, voice scratching. "Sheppard, can you hear me?"

No answer. He wanted the answer to his question to be, "Yes" or the ever universal, "I'm fine". The silence pressed on him. There were no sounds of searching. No sounds of rescue. The solitude and his inability to help overwhelmed him for a moment. He wanted to be able to tell Teyla when they found her that the team was whole. To tell Rodney and Lorne when…

"Floor below. They were on a floor below. Or was it above?" He closed his eyes. He didn't know where they were before the explosion. More possible losses.

If he ever saw Michael again…death would be too easy. The creature was a mistake from the beginning and it might cost everything. In another life, it had cost everything. He remembered Sheppard pacing like a caged animal waiting to be allowed to go through the Gate; to make his eons worth of journeying worth it, because he knew the outcome if they failed.

"Sheppard," he coughed as he called. The dust had dried in his throat and clogged his voice. "Answer me!" he rasped with as much anger and intimidation as he could muster.

A new feeling washed over him from the stillness. Despair was an ugly emotion that he could not afford right now. He could not do this again. Regain only to lose. He needed to focus on hope.

"Radio." He felt stupid that he had only thought of it now. "Radio." He patted his ear, then the other. Nothing.

"Big deep breath. Focus. Like Teyla…taught."

Gun fire popped from somewhere, echoing off the ruins. "That can't be good. Definitely not alone at all."

He tried to remove himself from the rubble one more time. He was never good at waiting. Hated waiting. Waiting was like death. The uncertainty. The reliance on others. The trust in others to act. The pain from his writhing scolded him and he knew waiting was his only option. He twisted to look down into the chasm.

"We'll have to wait a little longer, Sheppard. Sounds like they might be having some trouble." He listened for a cough, a grunt, or even a moan. There was still nothing and the lack of response hurt as bad as his legs.

"We just got you back…we…" No he would not dwell on that which he could not change. He would keep talking until he annoyed the man. He would channel his inner McKay. He could out wait his team leader. He would wait like he was supposed to. He would regale him with inane stories until Sheppard pushed the building off of him and smacked Ronon upside the head.

He looked up at the damaged ceiling and started with, "I haven't told you about my childhood pet, Creev…"

--SGA--

"…so Tyre and Ara thought that Rakai was in the bed, not a naked courtesan…" A long time had passed with sporadic gunfire and people shouting for them. Ronon had shouted back when he heard them, but no one had come so far.

"…because the last time they looked, Rakai didn't have such big, round…"

"Col. Sheppard! Ronon!"

"…such round beautiful…" It took him a moment to process that the caller was much closer.

"Ronon!" There was a brief break before, "Col. Sheppard!"

"Eyes…"

"Ronon!"

"Answer them," He whispered to himself. "Answer them because you hate to wait…HERE!" He fairly screamed-- or choked-- or desperately gasped. "We're here!"

He spoke again to the arm in the rubble. "They were good people, Sheppard. You would have liked them…before…" _Before the Wraith turned them,_ is what he kept to himself_. _The rubble and dust did not need to know that.

There were voices and a scrabbling and scratching sound before a figure in an orange jumpsuit and a helmet appeared in the fake window. A flashlight shined into the ruins and searched the floor and his precarious perch. "Found them!" the figure shouted back towards the light. Next he spoke into the radio. "Yeah, were going to need the equipment."

"Like your people, Sheppard. Just hang on…they're here."

"…stay where you are…Don't try to move…Ronon? Ronon, do you understand?"

"Yeah, I'll wait…" He closed his eyes. "I'll wait longer if I have to…just get Sheppard out…"

"That's my job, Mr. Dex. Just be patient."

Another shadow appeared from behind him and the two started talking and pointing down into the debris. Then they pointed his way.

"Hate waiting…had to wait twelve days…had to wait seven years…had to wait too many hours. Going to wait some more…John. You'd better make it, because I hate waiting for nothing." He twisted looking down at the arm, which had not moved. "You will make it…" he whispered the last part. "You will…"

"We're coming back, Ronon. Just hang on." The figures disappeared the way they had come.

"And I'll be waiting."

The End…for now.

--SGA--

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A/N: I know I'm chanting: Season 5! Season 5! And I can't be the only one! Once again, I know I'll be Jossed, but I couldn't resist.


End file.
